


if you do take a thief

by morallygreywaren



Series: to heist and to hold: rated m for murder mystery [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (but also the things you'd usually use this rating for), (but please message me if in doubt!), (promise it's lighthearted but don't want anyone to be hit by these things out of the blue), (these last tags mainly relate to off-screen characters), (this is a mess but i'm tagging three different ships - more info in the notes!), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Blackmail, Enemies to Lovers, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Multi, Murder Mystery, Mutual Pining, Referenced Complicated Relationship with Religion, Referenced alcohol abuse, References to Clue | Cluedo, Romantic Comedy, Secret Identity, Secret Identity Fail, actually who am I kidding, but it's a, especially Copley, it's idiots to lovers, let's just say everyone is in way over their head, rated m for murder mystery, referenced terminal illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallygreywaren/pseuds/morallygreywaren
Summary: DearQuynh NguyenDr Orchid,You are cordially invited to amurderous eveningdinner party at Merrick Manor this Saturday. Please take care not to reveal your true identity.Yours faithfully,James CopleySteven MerrickP.S.: Relax. You are being blackmailed.Clue(do) AU: Six strangers find themselves blackmailed to attend a dinner party at a remote manor in the English countryside. But are these people really strangers? And what will happen when nothing goes to plan and they find themselves with a body on their hands - a dead body?
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: to heist and to hold: rated m for murder mystery [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181333
Comments: 117
Kudos: 81





	1. six strangers, in a house in the countryside, with dubious intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the confusing tags, but tagging for three different relationship dynamics is... difficult :D The fic is going to hopefully give all three of them equal airtime, but if you'd like to know something about how the storyline for your fave is going to play out in advance or which tags apply to them specifically, please feel free to [shoot me a message on tumblr](https://morallygreywaren.tumblr.com/ask) or in the comments! (Also I'm not reinventing the wheel - the first chapter should make it pretty obvious which tag if for which ship.)
> 
> Thank you to aimmyarrowshigh who made [this stunning TOG x Clue (1985) edit](https://www.aimmyarrowshigh.com/post/633043654431408128) last Halloween - I didn't even know there was a film about my very favourite boardgame ;) If you've seen the film, don't worry, this is not a retelling; I've borrowed some plot elements but there wasn't much scope for romance within that story so I had to make my own. (On that note, also a shoutout to whoever made the Cluedo playlist with Britpop murder bops on Spotify - you may never know how inspirational the line "if this is rom-com, kill the director" by The Wombats has been to the inception of this fic.)
> 
> And finally, thank you to everyone who's been supportive of this story over the past weeks - it was a jumbled mess in my mind, and now it's slightly more coherent on the page and it wouldn't have made it there without you <3

_ This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last. _

_ \- Oscar Wilde _

There was no such thing as remoteness in the South of England, no matter how far into the countryside you drove. That much Nile knew. And yet, there Merrick Manor stood, imposing and distant in the middle of clearing, accessible only by a long path through the woods. The house seemed ancient at first glance, but the closer Nile looked the more she could tell it was a modern building made to look old.

She shivered a little, standing in front of it with only the darkness and the steady rain for company. Well. And the tall man with an undercut who held an umbrella for them both. Booker. But she probably shouldn’t call him that.

The warm light streaming from the windows illuminated his sad eyes as he searched her face, fingers hovering over the door knocker. 

Nile took the umbrella from him and gave him the smallest smile she could muster. He lifted the knocker once, twice, and Nile could feel each knock reverberating at the back of her skull. 

_Dear ~~Nile Freeman~~ Corporal Peacock,_ the invitation to Merrick Manor had read, and then swiftly established two things: That she was to attend this dinner party, and that she was _no_ to discuss her true identity with anyone. She wondered what identity had been given to Booker. She’d have to ask, pretend she didn’t know his name.

There were footsteps on the other side of the front door, before it opened to reveal a handsome black man in an expertly tailored suit, who Nile guessed to be in his forties. But maybe that was only because his eyes had the same sad quality as B—the man next to her’s.

“Ah, Corporal Peacock. Colonel Mustard,” the man behind the door said, nodding at each of them in turn. “Do come in.”

“Mister Merrick?” Bo— _Colonel Mustard_ held his hand out to the man, who shook it.

“Oh, no, my name is Copley, I am the butler here at Merrick Manor.” His eyes flit back and forth between Nile and 'Colonel Mustard' a few times, and Nile tried her hardest to hold his gaze. “Forgive me, I didn’t realise you knew each other.”

Half an hour earlier, Nile had been struggling through the wet grass on the side of an empty road in her heels, wishing that she had planned a little better ahead for the eventuality that Merrick Manor was not accessible by bus, when a car slowed almost to a halt next to her. Instinctively, her fingers had curled into fists as she tried to remember how to take a man’s eye out with a high heel. But when she'd looked up through the car window she relaxed.

Booker had given her this tiny grin that barely reached his eyes, and motioned with his head for her to join him.

“You can’t drive me there,” Nile had said.

Booker had looked up at where the rain was destroying the artfully arranged knot of braids on Nile’s head. “I can’t leave you out here in this weather either.”

He’d been right about that, and it would have felt stranger if she’d ignored him and walked another mile in the pouring rain.

“And you were really planning on walking here all the way from Guildford station in those shoes?” Booker had asked when he’d opened the car door for her in front the manor, umbrella in hand.

Nile had poked her tongue out at him, and gathered up the skirt of her sodden dress. Its shade of blue looked good on her, but she still wished she could have chosen her own. “You can judge when ‘black tie’ means men have to wear heels as well.”

He’d huffed one of his little laughs and offered her his arm for the stairs up to the manor, but she’d declined.

Now, in front of Copley, Nile only exchanged a glance with him.

“We don’t,” Booker said.

“Colonel Mustard offered to take me with him once we realised we were headed to the same dinner party,” she said.

Copley smiled and beckoned them inside with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “A kind offer, in this weather. Do come inside, and let me take your coats.”

Nile glanced up at the manor, the trees, the man next to her once more, and then pasted a wide smile on her face.

Sometimes, the only way out was through.

* * *

Noises from the entrance hall spilled into the library; voices, coat hangers, heels on freshly polished wooden tiles. Nicky stilled, his arm halfway to reaching for one of the leather bound tomes in the dim light of the little art deco lamp by the window.

“Sorry about bringing all this weather inside,” he heard a woman say, “Could I use your bathroom a moment to clean up?”

“Of course, ma’am. If you’ll follow me, please.” It sounded like the voice of the man who’d introduced himself as Copley. 

Nicky checked his watch. It was nearly fifteen minutes past eight, thirteen minutes since he’d arrived. And he’d been hiding in the library for a good twelve of them. The invitation had only said that he had to show up at this dinner party, not that he needed to socialise with anyone else who may or may not be invited. Given the circumstances of the invitation, Nicky wasn’t sure rubbing elbows with any of the other attendees would be a good idea. 

He was proven right a moment later when one of them entered the library.

"Apologies, I didn't mean to disturb, I merely wanted to take a look at the library while I'm here. Are you our ho—" 

Nicky looked up from his book to what he assumed were the words 'host this evening' dying on the intruder’s tongue. The man he was looking at was in his thirties, a little taller than Nicky, with dark curls and a wide smile. He was wearing a dark purple waistcoat, the collar of his shirt accessorised with little silver chains and dark gemstones that brought out his eyes very nicely. Which Nicky knew because he'd said something to that effect to him, the last time they- the last time they were- Well. That was hardly important. The more pressing question was what Yusuf al-Kaysani—what Joe was doing at this dinner party. 

Nicky was aware he was staring, but then, so was Joe. Who was lucky enough to catch himself first.

He cleared his throat. "Professor Plum, pleasure to meet you." Joe held out a hand for him to shake and Nicky rolled his eyes. 

"Oh, please." 

Joe's hand faltered and he began to scowl at Nicky. Which was much more like the facial expressions he was used to from Joe. Well, that and-

"Fine," Joe said, "What alter ego have they given you for the evening?"

Nicky looked down over his emerald blazer, the black shirt and the itchy dog collar he’d assembled earlier. "Reverend Green," he mumbled.

Joe's eyes grew wide. "Reverend? Well, I guess it is somewhat fitting. You do have a tendency to preach."

Nicky felt his features freeze. He knew people dressed up as clergy for Halloween parties all the time, but the invitation's request for this outfit still felt like a disingenious charade. Who was their host, that he knew Nicky had attended seminary for a while? And how had he found out? It was not something Nicky shared with people, generally speaking, and jokes like Joe’s reminded him of the reason why.

He snapped the book he was holding shut and pushed it into Joe’s chest, hard, so the man had no choice but to catch it. "You wanted to peruse the books. Don't let me disturb you." 

It wasn’t really an accident when his shoulder bumped into Joe’s on his way out of the library.

* * *

“Am I the first to arrive?” Quynh handed Copley her startlingly pink coat. The entrance hall she had stepped into from the rain outside was big, decorated in warm colours, wood and paintings, but unlike most old buildings, this one failed to make her feel at ease. Maybe it was because it was so glaringly obvious that while the house was supposed to look old, the furnishings decidedly weren’t, and Quynh had privately always thought there was a special hell reserved for interior designers who didn’t care about this detail. 

“On the contrary, Dr Orchid,” Copley said, “you complete our set. If you want to just step into the lounge through here and get acquainted with some of the other guests, I shall call for dinner in but a moment.”

Quynh smiled at him, as graciously as she could muster given the circumstances, and pushed open the door Copley indicated. Then she flinched, because she’d managed to smack it in the face of a man who had been standing just behind it. He was very tall, towering over her despite her heels, and wore trousers in a pale yellow.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but the two other women in the room were already hiding their huffs of laughter.

“It’s no matter.” The man rubbed his head but appeared otherwise unfazed, gesturing to the bar in front of him. “I was just getting us all a drink, would you like one?”

Quynh was on the verge of shaking her head, but then she registered the other two women in the room. The one who was standing by the fire, a young black woman with braids piled in an artful pile on top of her head, she had never seen before. The other one, who was sprawled across the couch, head cocked so that her short brunette hair was falling into her face as she regarded Quynh, on the other hand—Her hair had been longer the last time she’d seen her.

“I’ll have that drink, please,” Quynh said to the man.

“Coming right up,” he said. There was a hint of gruffness to his voice that felt familiar to Quynh, but it was also laced with humour. “What’s your name?”

“I go by Dr Orchid here. You?”

“Colonel Mustard,” he said and handed her a drink. “And that’s Corporal Peacock and Mrs Scarlet.”

Quynh felt her eyebrows crawl all the way up her forehead, so that she could barely acknowledge the introduction to the Corporal. “ _Mrs_ Scarlett?”

She had half expected to see Andy here, of course. It was hard not to, what with how tied up they were in—or at least, how it used to be. Andy shot her a wolfish grin as she accepted her aperitif from Colonel Mustard with one gloved hand and sat up to drink it, long legs glinting in the light from the fire where the slit in her red dress revealed them. How long had it been since she’d last seen her like this? Too long, by the sound of it.

“Is there a problem, _doctor_?” 

Quynh did not dignify this with an answer, and instead went to stand with Corporal Peacock by the fire. If this was how it was going to be, she needed alliances, and fast.

Corporal Peacock smiled at her, all innocence and youth, and Quynh wondered briefly what the poor woman could have possibly done to deserve being here with the rest of them. Not that appearances couldn’t be deceiving. Quynh liked to think she knew that better than most.

“Do you think there are more people coming?” Corporal Peacock asked and cast a glance out the window over her shoulder, where the rain seemed to be getting stronger.

“Mr Copley told me everyone he expected is now here.”

She heard Andy snort into her drink. “Guess someone had to be the last to arrive.”

Quynh was close to rolling her eyes, feeling her lips purse. “Some of us have places to be.”

“Don’t I know it.” Andy flicked her eyes up at her, all coldness and grey, but it pleased Quynh to see that they had lost none of their spark. She could tell that Corporal Peacock was looking from her to Andy in confusion, and she knew they’d need to stop this. The invitation hadn’t stated any consequences to what should happen if they revealed their identity during the evening but Quynh rather not find out.

Copley appeared in the doorway. “If you wouldn’t mind following me to the dining room, dinner is served.”

Quynh met Andy’s gaze one last time. “After you,” Andy said, and downed her drink.

* * *

In the dining room, they were joined by two more men, who Copley introduced as Professor Plum and Reverend Green respectively. Neither would meet Booker's eyes, nor those of the other guests as they took their seats, and privately, Booker was glad. Out of the five other attendants he had already recognised three, and now he didn’t want his gaze to linger too long, in case it turned out he knew Reverend Green and Dr Orchid as well. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing. He only wondered if their host knew.

Copley seated him between Mrs Scarlet and Professor Plum, or at least, Booker supposed, that was what he was supposed to call Andy and Joe this evening. He was facing Dr Orchid, who was flanked by the reverend to her left and Nile to her right, but he could barely see her through the candelabra in the middle of the table. The seat at the end of the table was left ominously empty.

“Where is our host?” Mrs Scarlet demanded as Copley began to serve the braised sea bream on salad that was to be their starter.

Copley checked his watch. “We shall see if he joins us this evening. I will leave you to get to know each other.”

That was the moment the awkward silence descended over the table. Or rather, the awkward silence had been with them all along. This was the moment it became inescapable. In front of their host’s empty chair sat a lone serving of bream and Booker found he had already lost his appetite. Looking at the others pushing around the fish on their plates, he didn’t think he was the only one. When Joe saw him looking, his mouth quirked up with the hint of a smile. Booker did not dare return it. And he and Joe were _friends_.

“So, what do y’all do?”

Booker flicked his eyes over to Nile just as her mouth closed around a forkful of bream. She met his gaze for the barest of seconds, only to convey a forceful _someone had to say something_ at him, then went back to looking around the table.

“Pretty sure we aren’t supposed to tell each other anything that might reveal our identity,” Reverend Green said, but more to the fish on his plate than to Nile. Who he should really be calling Corporal Peacock, but it was too absurd. He knew, of course, that she’d been a corporal before she’d marched into his life three months ago, but he despised the weird colour system.

“And yet, we all have a title that indicates what we do,” Andy said, shooting a playful smile in the reverend’s direction.

Dr Orchid snorted. “Being a _Mrs_ is hardly a job.”

“Sure felt like it some days though.” Andy took a long sip from her wine glass, eyes not leaving Dr Orchid.

Nile caught Booker’s eyes again, but all they conveyed was a drawn out _Oh-kayy_. This time, he couldn’t help the smile as he reached for his own glass, even as he realised that the mystery around Dr Orchid’s identity had now also evaporated. He still didn’t know her name, because Andy had never mentioned it. But he could recognise the woman who’d broken his best friend’s heart without that.

“Mr Copley encouraged us to talk though,” Nile ventured further when nobody spoke up again, “so I thought we might have some introductions.”

“Yeah, but what does Mr Copley know?” Joe replied. “The way I see it… We’re waiting for Mr Merrick here.”

They were all looking at the untouched sea bream steaming on Mr Merrick’s plate when Copley came in with the main course.

* * *

The main course was duck a l’orange with hasselback potatoes and sauteèd leek, which Joe had to assume was delicious. He would’ve known if it was, maybe, if he could’ve focussed on what it tasted like, but as it was, he was distracted.

One, by the fact that he’d only had duck a l’orange once in his life, in a restaurant just off Piccadilly Circus. It had been a lunch with a person who he thought would probably not want to remind him of the fact that the lunch had happened, and to see the same dish served here could not be a coincidence. And two, by Nicolò di Genova – _Nicky –_ somehow sitting across from him at this godforsaken dinner party, broad hands gingerly wrapped around the delicate silverware as he cut a piece of his duck then brought the fork to his lips. Joe was by no means an innocent man, but it would’ve probably been easier to fool himself into thinking himself one if it wasn’t for those lips.

The reason Joe had to assume the duck was delicious was because Nicky scrunched up his nose in what looked like distaste after only one bite. And experience had shown Joe that he could disagree with the man on _anything_.

“Something not to your taste?” Joe asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“I would have made it differently.” Nicky dabbed at his upper lip with a napkin and gave Joe what could only be interpreted as a warning glare. It was, as so often, rather ineffective.

“I’m sure,” Joe said under his breath, but yanked his attention away from Nicky and back to the other guests.

It was a strange troop of people that Merrick had invited to this dinner. Well, _invited_. Joe was not able to say he would have come if he felt that he’d had a choice. Which made him eye the others with suspicion. That Booker was there did not surprise him in the least, and the two women who kept glaring at each other in their designer gowns also looked like they might have some corpses in the basement, figuratively speaking. But what could Nicky possibly be doing here? And the sweet-looking woman at the other end of the table, who kept trying to make conversation? 

The way Joe saw it, there were two options: Either, he was the only one who had been forced to attend. Or, for some nefarious but far more likely reason, they were all getting blackmailed.

* * *

To an outside observer, it might have seemed like Andy did not care. This was not, strictly speaking, a bad thing; there were little instances in life where an abundance of care seemed to be rewarded. What she really lacked though was something else altogether: patience.

Never more so than at this dinner table, watching people skewer their way through both their main course and non-existent small talk topics.

“The duck is good,” Booker said, at some point. Andy simply didn’t find it in herself to call him Colonel Mustard. She wasn’t sure what exactly Merrick got off on finding this kind of charade funny, but she was most decidedly not in the mood for games.

“You think so?” Quynh lifted an eyebrow at Booker. This was the other thing wearing her patience thin. No matter how much she tried to ignore her, the simplest movement on Quynh’s face always drew Andy back in.

“Not as good as my mother’s, but yeah, I’d say so.”

The man in the green jacket at the end of the table made a sound like a suppressed groan. “You’re French?”

Booker smiled like he always did, that wolfish half-smile, eyes cast downwards. “ _Oui_. And I take it you’re Italian?”

“ _Si_ , well spotted.”

“Not like you try very hard to hide it,” the man in the purple waistcoat sitting across from Green scoffed. Andy had no patience for that either.

The corporal across from Andy dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. She looked far too young to have been a corporal. Maybe it was just her face and Andy’s own memories of her time in the military skewing her expectations, though. At the end of a tour, everyone always just looked tired. “So do you live here now or are you travelling?” Peacock asked.

“I live here now,” both Green and Booker answered at the same time. Their gazes met in a frown.

“Me too,” the corporal said. “Moved here a few months ago. What about everybody else?”

Quynh held up a hand without looking up from her duck. “Second generation immigrant.”

“Me too.” Purple nodded.

Heads were turning towards Andy. Was this what Merrick wanted? Strangers in a stranger country, the thing they all had in common? She doubted it, but there was no way to know when the man didn’t even bother showing up.

Andy dropped her napkin on the table. “Well, looks like we’re all immigrants! Something in common at last, don’t you think, Corporal?”

The woman across from her frowned. “That’s not—"

Copley appeared in the doorway again, carrying a tablet full of little dishes. “Would anyone like some crema catalana for dessert?” 

They all looked up at him like he’d grown a second head. Copley did not seem to care for this development, however, and proceeded to place the little pudding dishes in front of them. By the time he reached her end of the table, the little patience Andy had left over had finally run out. She took her knife and stabbed it clean through Copley’s sleeve, pinning his wrist to the table. 

She waited until he looked at her, a hint of concern in his handsome features. _Good._

“This has been going on long enough,” she hissed, “Copley, is it? Why don’t you tell us where our host is, and while you’re at it, why the hell we’re all here this evening.”

It was not a question. Copley let his gaze roam over the table, composing himself until a cocky little grin appeared back on his face. 

“Ah-hah,” he chuckled, and plucked the knife out of the table. Andy should’ve used more force. “Anyone willing to wait until after dessert?”

There weren’t many things Andy was willing to skip dessert for. This was one of them.

“Well, then I guess I will better explain myself.” Copley fixed his sleeve that now had a hole in it, and gestured to the door. “If you’ll follow me to the lounge; there all will be revealed.”


	2. Nile Freeman, in the study, with a pair of high heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the “invitation” to this party had arrived, Nile had nearly started crying. She couldn't tell her dad about it, and for a horrible, horrible moment she'd thought Booker had sold her out. Then she'd gotten a text from him that was a picture of the thick paper the invitation was printed on, saying: _Please tell me you didn't get one of these, too._
> 
> When she didn't reply, he wrote: _Nile, it wasn't me. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I don't know how this came out. I'm so sorry._
> 
> She'd believed him; and looking into his eyes for a moment longer than was strictly necessary from across the room now, she still believed him. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

They followed Copley into the lounge, where Nile went straight back to standing in front of the fire. She liked the dress she was wearing, but it was strapless and still pretty wet; the cold from the house and the rain still pelting on the windows was seeping into her bones. The warmth at her back was a nice reprieve, almost like someone laid a steadying hand on her shoulder blades. Like she didn’t have to be the only one constantly telling herself that she’d got this.

Across the room, Mrs Scarlet plucked a vodka bottle from the bar, poured two generous glasses and passed one to Booker. He accepted it without exchanging a word with the woman, just raised it in a silent toast. He did the same to Nile when he caught her looking at them, and she was glad she had her hands crossed behind her back. Maybe no one would noticed that that had been all it took to get them to stop shaking.

Copley had come to stand leaning on a table in the corner as he waited for them all to get settled. Dr Orchid had thrown herself into one of the armchairs by the fire immediately, but Professor Plum and Reverend Green had both headed for the same couch and now appeared to be caught in a silent dance on who’d be allowed to sit down first, if at all. Nile frowned. They both seemed like pleasant enough people, but this was ridiculous. There was enough space for both of them.

“Gentlemen.” Copley cleared his throat. The two men looked up at him, their faces immediately shutting out all expression, then sat down on the couch without a word. There was enough space between them to fit Nile twice over, which was to say, they nearly perched on the opposing armrests.

“Well, it seems that there is a... _delay_ in Mr Merrick joining us tonight,” Copley said, letting his gaze roam across their faces, “Now, you’re all extraordinarily clever people. I’m sure at least one of you will have figured out why you’re all here by now.”

“And if we had,” Dr Orchid said, looking at her immaculate fingernails instead of at him, “why should we tell you? What information do _you_ have about our being here?”

Copley smiled. “Who do you think sent out the invitations?”

His voice did a complicated dip on the last word, and Nile’s stomach lurched. Her eyes flit across the room to the others, who were all on various stages of glowering at Copley. 

Mrs Scarlet sat down in the other armchair. “So you and Merrick decide to force a bunch of people into attending a dinner party? If he needed company that badly, he could’ve at least made an effort to be on time.”

Copley leaned forward, eyes fixed on Mrs Scarlet. “Or consider this: Mr Merrick does not know that he is hosting you tonight.”

“Or at least not until now.” Before they had time to process Copley’s reveal, a tall man with cropped hair had appeared in the doorway. From his stance, Nile guessed that he was ex-military, but the real giveaway was the gun he had trained on them. “What’s going on here, Copley?”

For all that Copley had been suave and assured all evening, the stiffness in his spine now looked nothing like composure. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d check in. Looks like I was right to. So I ask again, what’s going on here?”

A different man would have sworn under his breath, but Copley just schooled his features into a neutral mask. Then he turned back to his guests, since the tall man – their host, Merrick, Nile guessed – clearly had no idea who they were. “I shall be back in but a moment.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the doorway and Merrick reluctantly stepped out of the lounge for him to lead the way, but not without a last, lingering glance at the six of them.

When their steps had retreated down the hallway, and a door fell closed behind them, Nile allowed herself a short sigh of relief. If Copley was the one who had sent the invitations, maybe Merrick didn’t know what was going on at all, and was going to send them on their way once he realised what Copley was up to. 

“So we’re all getting blackmailed?” Professor Plum asked into the silence in the room.

“Yep.” Reverend Green’s voice sounded strained. He hadn’t uncrossed the arms in front of his chest since he’d sat down.

Dr Orchid winked at the professor. “Makes you wonder what everyone else is here for, doesn’t it?” She glanced up at Booker. “Bet some of you have some really sordid secrets you’re trying to hide.”

Professor Plum let out a short laugh, but it lacked humour, more like the _Ha!_ had been punched out of him. Booker levelled a stare at Dr Orchid over the rim of his glass. “And you don’t?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I don’t. But you’d love to know, wouldn’t you?”

 _No_ , Nile thought, _no, we’re not sharing why we’re here; that is not happening._

Mrs Scarlet rolled her eyes. “I think I can _guess_.”

The reverend narrowed his eyes at her. “I think we all rather you didn’t.”

“Suit yourselves.” Mrs Scarlet drained her glass. “Might get us out of here quicker if we do, though.”

Nile caught Booker’s gaze from where he was standing beside Mrs Scarlet’s armchair. Her eyes must have shown what she was thinking, because he nodded his head towards the door, barely noticeable to an onlooker, but a clear sign to her. If the others wanted to share why they were getting blackmailed, that was on them - but Nile simply _couldn’t_ let anyone find out why she was here. It was bad enough that Copley knew. And possibly Merrick. And Booker, of course, but she’d decided to trust Booker months ago. Before she'd met him, even.

Six months before, Nile had been discharged from the Marines. Reasonably honourably discharged, even, and after some back and forth, she’d secured the funds she needed from the government to go to university in the UK, and left almost that same evening. Which was not how she’d ever thought she’d spend her retirement. She always thought it would be her, and her brother, and whatever friends she made at grad school in Chicago. But then she’d found out her father, who she’d thought dead, was hiding in London. Because he’d left the army without being discharged, not even dishonourably. Which was not the kind of thing you could do and then step back onto American soil without consequences.

Her father had told her not to come, but Nile never could have stayed away. To exist in a place where nothing held you, away from your family and unable to prove who you were and what you could do, subsisting on semi-legal jobs and semi-legal pay and always, always the kindness of strangers – that was not a life. And Nile was going to change that.

Which was how she’d found herself knocking on Booker’s door, the back entrance to a basement level flat in a reasonably nice London neighbourhood about two months after.

She’d never asked anyone to do anything illegal for her, and imagining having to say it out loud had felt like she’d leave an unerasable mark on herself. She hadn’t wanted to put her fate and that of her father in the hands of a stranger. A stranger who was known for making forgeries. A fellow criminal.

It had been dark out already, and she’d never forgotten what it had felt like when he’d opened the door. Light spilling out onto the street, they'd both stood there for a moment and just regarded each other, him in track bottoms and a shirt open over his t-shirt, her in her bomber jacket and jeans, until all her apprehension drained away at the soft, confused look in his eyes.

“Hello,” he’d said. “Are you here for a… commission?”

She’d opened her mouth, thoughts like _no, I need a passport for my father so real no one will be able to tell he’s not supposed to be here, he’ll need a national insurance number and a different name and maybe an employment history and I can only pay for it with money from the same people who would arrest him if they knew he was still alive_ just on the tip of her tongue, but she’d caught herself just in time. “Yeah,” she’d breathed.

“You better come in then.”

He’d offered her a cup of tea, which was here than where she was from, but she’d taken it just to have something to do with her hands while she told him what she needed and who she needed it for as they sat at his kitchen table.

“It’s for my dad,” she’d said. “He needs all the documentation he can get to stay here, after he deser—"

“No need to tell me,” he’d interrupted her calmly, “but for what it’s worth, I completely understand. It’s what this whole thing started out from.” He drew a circle in the air to indicate his working space.

And Nile hadn’t expected to breathe easier that evening – she hadn’t been breathing easily in months, not since her dad had contacted them again and she’d known he was alive, alive but in danger – but that was all it had taken, a tiny spark of understanding.

Booker had told her it would take him roughly two weeks altogether for every single document that she needed, and wrote a sum of money on a little slip of paper that was much lower than she had expected. They’d shaken hands, and she’d turned to leave, and he’d seen her out, and just before she’d been about to walk away, he’d held out another slip of paper with his phone number to her.

"I know you feel alone. And like no one understands. I don't know how you found me, and I can't expect you to trust me, but if you need to. You can talk to me."

And Nile had thought that was an empty gesture, really, but when she'd texted him even before the two weeks he'd given her to pick up her dad's new passport were up, he'd replied within an hour.

"Does it ever get better?" she'd asked him when they’d gone out for coffee, and looked long and hard into his sad eyes. For a moment, he’d let her see all there was, the pain and the regret, but also the flimsy sense of control, the hope. It’s what she liked best about him. That he only ever glanced away from her when he could be sure that she’d seen what she needed to.

"I want to tell you it does," he'd said, "but I don't know if that alone would help."

She'd laughed, and she'd felt helpless, although she couldn’t quite say why. But at least she hadn’t felt hopeless anymore, which had been something. "It does if you believe it as well."

When the “invitation” to this party had arrived, she'd nearly started crying. She couldn't tell her dad about it, and for a horrible, horrible moment she'd thought Booker had sold her out. Then she'd gotten a text from him that was a picture of the thick paper the invitation was printed on, saying: _Please tell me you didn't get one of these, too._

When she didn't reply, he wrote: _Nile, it wasn't me. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I don't know how this came out. I'm so sorry._

She'd believed him; and looking into his eyes for a moment longer than was strictly necessary from across the room now, she still believed him. It was as simple and as complicated as that. That didn’t mean Nile wanted to be dragged any deeper into the mess they were already in, though.

“I’m going to freshen myself up a little,” she said quickly before anyone could volunteer their story. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Nile hurried out of the lounge and down the hallway towards the bathroom she’d been to earlier. And she would have gone there, too, if for no other reason than to run some hot water over her wrists. But then she heard voices behind one of the doors down the hallway. And Nile paused.

 _You’re a curious child, baby, but remember no one likes an eavesdropper,_ her mum used to say to Nile whenever she’d caught her listening on the door to the living room after her parents had sent her to bed. Then, Nile had only wanted to know how the film on TV ended. Now, she _needed_ to know what Copley and Merrick were discussing.

She slipped out of her heels, the floor impossibly cold under her feet, and snuck down the corner of the hallway. 

“I’m warning you, Copley,” she heard Merrick say. “You pull a stunt like that again, I’ll make sure Steven puts you out on your ass quicker than you can say ‘traitor’, you hear me?”

 _Steven?_ Nile tried to remember what the invitation had said. Wasn’t Steven Mr Merrick’s first name?

“Listen, Keane, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. What Merrick does and doesn’t run past you has changed considerably in the last couple of weeks, and you have no authority threatening me here. I’d go as far as to say that you’re out of _line_ threatening me here.”

Nile pressed her back flat to the wall, breaths coming short and shallow. So the man in there with Copley wasn’t Merrick at all. It was someone else, another stranger who couldn’t, _shouldn’t_ , know that she was here. She tried to steady her breathing. At least they weren’t discussing the blackmail.

“Oh really,” Keane responded, “so you won’t mind if I give Steven a little call to confirm this?”

“Be my guest,” Copley said, just as Keane swore, “but there’s no signal here in a thunderstorm like this.”

Pounding footsteps approached the door, and Nile shrank back into the hallway just about managing to duck underneath a curtain before the door was ripped open. “I’ll be back, Copley,” Keane threatened. “And your story better check out, or there will be hell to pay for.”

His footsteps had no sooner retreated down the hallway that Nile freed herself from the curtain she’d hidden under, wriggled back into her shoes and stormed into the room Keane had just left.

It was a study, with a heavy oak desk in the middle and nigh-empty bookshelves lining every wall. As before, Copley didn’t sit at the desk but merely leaned on it, fingers curled around the rim, head hanging low. It snapped up when Nile barged in.

“Corporal Peacock.” He looked surprised, but gathered himself quickly. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Yes,” she said immediately. Nile hadn’t been able to think before, but now it was suddenly all very clear. “Mr Copley, I don’t know why you’ve invited us all here this evening, but I’m telling you now that I don’t want any part in this; there has been a mistake.”

Up until this point, he’d looked at her with warm confusion, but now his features darkened. Copley crossed his arms in front of his body. “Really. So you didn’t receive a letter detailing your father’s current whereabouts, and what would happen with that information should you not attend today?”

Nile closed her eyes. “Well, yes, but—"

“Then I don’t think there has been a mistake.”

Nile scowled at him. Of course there had been a mistake. If only that they were supposed to attend with fake names under some pretence that they would all be strangers, when clearly, most of the people she’d left behind in the lounge had some shared history if the way they acted with each other was anything to go by. Even Nile knew Booker. But unlike Booker, there was nothing she could do, no assets she had that Copley might want to extort from her.

“But I have nothing to offer you. Whatever the reason, whatever your plans for us, I don’t think I can help you.”

She hadn’t noticed before that Copley smiled like a shark. A gentle shark, but a shark nonetheless. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” 

There was a knock on the door, and then Booker’s voice. “Mr Copley? Ni—Corporal Peacock?”

Booker stood in the doorway, fingers tucked into his belt that way Nile had seen him do when he didn’t want to fidget. “You’ve been gone for a while,” he said to Nile, “just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

She nodded, a small smile on her lips. Hoping that the sudden warmth spreading inside her despite the biting cold was obvious only to her. 

“Good,” Booker said, “because there’s something I think both of you should know—"

But before he could finish, the hallway was filled with a blood-curdling scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, I've decided to let Nile's father live in this one, which means that my interpretation of Nile's behaviour in some of the upcoming chapters differs a little from how I usually write her character. (Shielding a person from the law is a hugely stressful experience and so Nile will be dealing with a little more of the anxiety relating to that. She is still probably the smartest person in any given room and an all round badass, but I thought I'd give you a head's up because this is the kind of thing I would care about as a reader.)
> 
> Also just relating to timelines, her dad wouldn't have deserted when Nile was eleven, but a few years prior to the events in this story before he risked contacting them. This is not really relevant to the plot or what Nile is dealing with here, but I just thought I'd let you know.


	3. six acquaintances, in the hallway, with a dead body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The crema catalana could’ve used a bit more lemon zest, by the way, Copley, but otherwise it was delicious.”
> 
> This seemed to finally get through to Copley, who’d so far been rooted to the spot, staring at the corpse as his complexion turned ashen.
> 
> “Excuse me?” He blinked up at Mrs Scarlet. 
> 
> “Zest,” she repeated, “It rounds out the dessert.”
> 
> “Am I the only one who seems to be aware of the fact that there is a _dead body_ lying in front of us?” Copley punctuated each of his words with pointed gestures towards the corpse.
> 
> Joe had privately been waiting for the moment when he was going to lose it. He only barely suppressed a chuckle. “Well, you knew what kind of people you were inviting, didn’t you?”

Nicky was the first to make it to the hallway once he’d heard the scream. The scene in front of him was strange for two reasons: One, it was Quynh who was screaming. And two, she was standing over what looked to be the dead body of the man who had interrupted Copley earlier, their host and blackmailer, Steven Merrick. 

Joe was hot on Nicky’s heels, and nearly bumped into him when Nicky stopped at the entrance to the hallway, giving himself away with a soft intake of breath. Mrs Scarlet arrived from the opposite direction of the house, and just when Quynh began to gather her breath, Colonel Mustard, Corporal Peacock and Copley joined them as well. 

Quynh stopped screaming. “Everyone here? Great.”

Nicky felt a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, despite the circumstances. It had been a shock when he’d recognised not only Joe, but also Quynh under the guests at this infernal dinner party. Only unlike Joe, at least with her he could be reasonably sure that she wouldn’t go about revealing his identity.

She stepped away from the body so that the seven of them were now standing around it like it was a particularly macabre campfire, varying levels of shock written across their faces. Apart from Copley, nobody looked too taken aback by the situation though. _Not their first corpse then_ , Nicky thought grimly. He hadn’t thought it would be possible for the esteem he held for the other guests to sink lower, but here they were.

“Is he—” Copley swallowed audibly, “—dead? Do we need to call a doctor?”

A few gazes flickered towards Quynh and were met by a cool stare. “Oh, because I’ve got a doctorate? Not sure they’re letting people with a PhD in political economy practice medicine these days.”

Hiding his smile again, Nicky crouched down and held his hand in front of Merrick’s face. He also wasn’t equipped to practice medicine, at least not in the traditional sense, but someone ought to check. Merrick’s eyes were staring up at the ceiling, unblinking and unseeing, and Nicky suppressed a shudder running down his spine. He took his hand away from Merrick’s mouth quickly and reached for his wrist instead.

There was no breath, and when Nicky tried to feel his pulse, he couldn’t find that either. There was only the steady thrum of Nicky’s own heart pulsing through his veins, so loud now that he could feel it at the back of his ears, his head, his fingers, his toes.

Nicky placed Merrick’s hand on his chest and looked up at the others.

“Looks like someone killed our host.”

* * *

“Could anyone have gotten in?” Colonel Mustard asked, looking at Copley. Quynh studied both of them now that she had the chance, but found that she couldn’t place their faces. She was beginning to feel like it wasn't a coincidence, exactly, that both Andy and Nicky should be here. There had to be some sort of connection she shared with the others, too.

“No, the—” Copley started, stopped. He didn’t look very well. Or that wasn’t quite true, he still looked exceptionally well, just maybe not quite so well put together as he had when he had revealed that he was in on the whole operation about extorting them. He cleared his throat. “The doors and windows are all under a central lock. He only got in because he has his own key in the first place.”

“So one of us murdered him,” Corporal Peacock said darkly, but not grimly. It was the kind of sentence that couldn’t be uttered without everyone it addressed sharing concerned glances, and so Quynh let her eyes roam over the strangers, and linger on the people she knew. She had the unfortunate privilege of knowing just what Andy was capable of, but this was a rash murder, and badly calculated. Not that she should know. Not that she _did_. She only knew Andy, and more about her past than she was willing to share with anyone else. For her own peace of mind, she assumed Nicky didn’t even know how to hold a gun.

“We all have a motive, I suppose.” Professor Plum broke the silence, casting a sharp glance at Copley. “He _was_ blackmailing us. Not that he needed to make any more enemies.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Nicky asked him.

Professor Plum shrugged. He was much younger and prettier than Quynh remembered all of her professors being, but she could see him teaching one of these new-fangled disciplines universities advertised to rake in tuition fees. “Did you not look up our host before tonight? Steven Merrick is, well, _was_ a pharma CEO. His company is about to go public next month. He had enough enemies.”

Quynh reconsidered. Maybe he had become a professor based on merit, and not just as a student thirst-trap. Then Corporal Peacock cleared her throat.

“The only problem is that _that’s_ not Steven Merrick,” she said, and Quynh didn’t think she imagined the pointed glare Peacock levelled at Copley out of the corner of her eyes. “This man is apparently called Keane. Probably worked for Merrick or something.”

That changed things, certainly, but it didn’t quite change the most pressing issue they had at hand. It was an old habit to look over to Andy, share a glance that was acknowledgement and comfort at once. Only it would be neither, and Quynh knew that, and still and still. Some things were impossible to be killed, once you’d loved them. 

Andy was just giving Nile the kind of appraising look _most_ people reserved for job interviews, before her eyes flickered over to Quynh for little more than a heartbeat. Barely an acknowledgment, then, but still more than Quynh could have reasonably expected.

She sharply refrained from rolling her eyes at herself and turned back to the group. “So either the murderer got the wrong guy or one of you is a ruthless, trained killer.” 

_At least_ _one of you_ , she thought, but she had suspected that much already anyway. The awkward silence after her statement confirmed it. 

“What makes you say that?” Nicky asked. He’d gotten up again, dusting his hands on his trousers.

“Keane was armed when we got here,” Quynh said, “so whoever killed him either snuck up on him, or they knew what they were doing.”

* * *

There were a few things that seemed odd about that statement to Booker. Factually, Dr Orchid was correct. Whoever killed Keane knew what they were doing, but it didn’t stop there. When the man had shown up in the lounge with a gun trained at Copley earlier, Booker would have never assumed he was an employee of their host, or a colleague of Copley’s. At least not in the traditional sense. Something in the way Keane had stood there and barked orders made Booker think he was a military man. Ex-military, maybe. There were some mannerisms you simply never managed to shake again. 

Booker cast a glance around the entrance hall, the wide wooden space stretching beyond their little circle. Then he crouched down next to Keane and lifted his jacket to reveal where he suspected his gun holster to be. It was empty.

“Oh, they definitely knew what they were doing. None of us are wearing shoes that would make it possible to sneak up on someone with a gun on this floor. Whoever killed him was quick, efficient, possibly disarmed him before a gunshot could alert the rest of us and then dumped the corpse where it would be found quickly,” he said, and looked up at Dr Orchid. “Where were you before you found him?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and Booker quickly stood up again. “ _I_ stayed in the lounge after everyone deserted me. Why, are you suggesting I killed him?”

“No, I’m suggesting we all share where we were and what we were doing at the time of his murder.”

There was a scoff behind him. It was the reverend. “What are you, a cop?”

“No. But I have common sense. And I think the only people who have an alibi so far are Copley and Corporal Peacock here.”

The reverend bristled at what Booker had to admit was a not so thinly veiled barb. 

“Why?” Joe asked. “Copley went off with Keane, didn’t he?” 

“They were only talking, though,” Nile responded, in a voice that was much smaller than Booker was used to. She looked a little embarrassed, and Booker wanted to—He tried not to let himself think it. Give her his jacket so she wouldn’t look so cold. Take her hand, maybe. Drive her away from this gathering, this house, this mess. He didn’t know, he didn’t know. Not that that was a new development. “And Keane was still alive when he left the study.” 

Nobody pressed for how she got that information, but Booker would have expected Copley to look a little more grateful about her help. He was probably still in shock.

Dr Orchid crossed her arms. “If you want all of us to divulge what we were doing, why don’t you start with explaining how you knew it wasn’t either of them?”

Booker sighed. “Fine. I’ll start. I left the lounge to go to the bathroom, and then I found Corporal Peacock and Mr Copley in the study. At some point in between the two events, a corpse appeared in the hallway.”

* * *

Joe very nearly laughed at Booker’s face when Nicky suggested he was a policeman. Oh, if he only _knew_. Nicky finding out about Booker’s true identity would have raised a couple of uncomfortably close assertions about the reason Joe was at this party though, and Joe wasn’t sure he was ready for Nicky to find out about them. Not if he thought about the lengths he’d gone to keep Nicky from learning anything about his real identity in all the time they’d known each other. He’d have preferred to walk away from it all, had been prepared to before he showed up. Or so he’d thought.

“I was in the library,” he chimed in. Nicky glared at him, but that was his problem. _He_ could have said that he’d been in the library first. There’d been plenty of time. “I noticed that Mr Merrick has an impressive collection of texts on the Alexander technique before dinner and thought I would take another look when it seemed apparent that neither Copley nor Corporal Peacock were coming back any time soon.”

Joe returned Nicky’s glare with a satisfied smile. He couldn’t resist.

“I—” Nicky started. He _had_ followed Joe out of the lounge, that much he wouldn't be able to deny. Now he just had to say where he went. He looked away from Joe. “I stepped onto the terrace for a moment,” he said, “for some fresh air.”

 _Oh, but he was an atrocious liar_.

“I went to the kitchen. And the dining room.” It was the first thing Mrs Scarlet had said since they’d all arrived in the hallway. For a moment it looked like she wouldn’t elaborate, but when nobody else filled the silence, she shrugged. “We never had dessert. The crema catalana could’ve used a bit more lemon zest, by the way, Copley, but otherwise it was delicious.”

This seemed to finally get through to Copley, who’d so far been rooted to the spot, staring at Keane’s corpse as his complexion turned ashen.

“Excuse me?” He blinked up at Mrs Scarlet. 

“Zest,” she repeated. “It rounds out the dessert.”

“Am I the _only one_ who seems to be aware of the fact that there is a _dead body_ lying in front of us?” Copley punctuated each of his words with pointed gestures towards Keane’s corpse.

Joe had privately been waiting for the moment when he was going to lose it. He only barely suppressed a chuckle. “Well, you knew what kind of people you were inviting, didn’t you?”

* * *

“I knew who I was inviting, I didn’t expect anyone to get _murdered_!” Copley raised his voice, which was a sure fire way of losing Andy’s respect. Not that she’d had much of it lying around for Copley to begin with. “Much less a person who wasn’t even supposed to be here. I thought it was a hiccough in my plan when Keane showed up earlier, but now this. This!”

Quynh cocked her head the way she did when she was either considering something or about to annihilate someone with her words. “... _your_ plan?”

Copley deliberately ignored her. “I don’t know why we’re standing around here still debating where everyone was. That is not going to solve anything; I’m calling the police.”

Andy used the moment he scrambled for his phone to step closer to him, so that she could just reach over and fix his thumb joint between her fingers before he could press the ‘emergency call’ button. It was probably hurting Copley a little. He looked up at her with a dumbfounded expression.

“You are not calling the police,” she informed him. “First of all, you have no signal. And second of all – how truthful do you think the six people you blackmailed into coming here today are going to be in their witness reports?”

Andy waited a moment to let the information sink in, then she released Copley’s thumb. He let out a short breath, but he didn’t press the dial button.

“Are you threatening me?”

“You tell me.”

Andy had made many a seemingly rash decision in her life. But they were never uncalculated. She was just quicker than most other people at realising that she was right. So to say that it was gratifying to watch Copley deflate in front of her now was a bit of an understatement.

He sighed. “What do you suggest we do?”

* * *

Nile was deeply impressed by the way Mrs Scarlet handled the situation. The way she stood in front of Copley, at this point pretty much their captor and not their host, and stared him down until he caved, reminded her of the way she always thought she was going to go through the world: Fearless, commanding the respect she deserved. She thought joining the marines would turn her into that person. Only she’d been so wrong, and now she wouldn’t know what to say to the fearless little girl she’d been. She only knew she still had to be strong for her, just in case.

Mrs Scarlet rolled her shoulders. “The colonel here just got alibis out of everyone, didn’t he? I say we split up and follow up on everyone’s story; I’m sure we’ll find some evidence somewhere.”

“Or at least Keane’s gun,” Booker added.

Copley looked less rattled now, but Nile could tell he was deeply, deeply unhappy with the situation. “So we let the murderer roam around freely so they can potentially kill more people who might incriminate them? Absolutely not.” 

Mrs Scarlet rolled her eyes. “So we’ll go in pairs then. Would make it quite obvious who it was if someone’s partner also turned up dead, don’t you think?” 

Copley swallowed, and then he turned to Nile. “Fine. But I am going with Corporal Peacock.”

“Why?” It was not that she had a problem going with Copley, per se, but he wouldn’t be her first choice. Not that she was sure her first choice would even be the best choice in this case.

“She’s the only one who’s been with me since the moment Keane left, so I can say for certain I’m safe with her.”

It was faultless logic, but Nile was still grateful when Reverend Green challenged him. “That is all well and good, but how can we be sure she’d be safe with you?”

Copley seemed to consider this for a moment, turning to Nile for back-up, but the longer she thought about it, the more being paired up with a man who was clearly their blackmailer lost its appeal. If it ever had any to begin with. She lifted exactly one eyebrow and watched the sweat break out on Copley’s forehead.

“Alright, we shall draw straws,” Copley said. “Nobody move!”

He jogged to the kitchens and returned with a handful of matches and a kitchen knife.

“What about the person left over?” Dr Orchid asked. “If I may say so, it doesn’t exactly take a maths degree to work out we’re an uneven number.”

Copley looked up at her, and then to Mrs Scarlet, who only smiled mildly. “Should they stay with the corpse?” he asked.

“Why do we need someone to watch the corpse?” Reverend Green asked, which seemed to draw an unwilling smile out of the professor. “It’s not like he’s going to go anywhere,” Plum added.

Copley lined the matches up behind his fingers so they all looked to be the same length. “The murderer might try and dispose of the evidence,” he suggested.

“What if the person drawing the short straw is the murderer?” Nile asked. This was getting fun now. She half expected Copley to shout at her, but he just made a noise like a cut off groan and discarded one of the matches, so that there were only six left to draw. 

“Fine. _Fine_. I will stay with the corpse.”

A lazy smile spread on Mrs Scarlet’s face. “And when the storm is over and we know who did this, we shall call the police,” she said, and picked the first match. It was of medium length. 

Copley held his hand out to Nile and she picked next, matching Mrs Scarlet’s perfectly.

“Looks like you’re with me, kid.” Either Nile was imagining things, or Mrs Scarlet actually looked pleased to be paired with her.

Booker drew a short match, then Dr Orchid and Professor Plum both drew the long ones.

Copley handed the last one to the Reverend. “So that leaves—”

“The short straw,” Green interrupted him, looking at Booker. If it had been at all appropriate to the situation, Nile would have laughed at both their faces.


	4. Nicolò di Genova, in the lounge, with a decanter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colonel Mustard opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something, reconsidered, and then tried again. “Do you. Do you know J—Professor Plum?”
> 
> They locked gazes over Colonel Mustard’s drink, trying to suss each other out. So he wasn’t the only one at this party who knew Joe. Interesting.
> 
> “In what way?”
> 
> Colonel Mustard gave him an annoyed look. “So you obviously do know him.”
> 
> “I didn’t say that,” Nicky said, and then had to close his eyes because there was no point lying about this now. He just couldn’t tell the colonel the truth, was the problem.

The moment Quynh had pulled a different sized match to Colonel Mustard’s, Nicky had known he wouldn’t be paired with Joe, and he still wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed about that. He’d followed Joe into the library earlier because he felt like they had to, needed to discuss why they were in this house, and what they were both being blackmailed for. Since Copley seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they knew each other, it couldn’t be about anything related to that, and it was not like Nicky knew all that much about Joe to begin with, but- But. He could never finish that thought, and that was why they never made it to that part of the conversation before Quynh had started screaming. 

Nicky sighed. He’d much rather be paired with her. Not that it would be completely without awkwardness, but at least it wouldn’t be Colonel Mustard holding open the door to the lounge for him, saying, “After you, Reverend.”

Nicky gave him a tight-lipped smile as he stepped past him. 

_Reverend, right_. Nicky wasn’t a man of God. Or at least he wasn’t anymore. Maybe he never had been. He still lived his life by the values taught in the churches of his youth, or at least most of them, but his profession was not to guide others to the light. No, these days the only guidance he provided was as a counsellor. 

“Thank you, officer.” He couldn’t help himself, but to Mustard’s credit, he didn’t hit him for it even though he looked like he considered it for a moment. 

By mutual unspoken agreement, they each took one side of the room to investigate, which Nicky did, listlessly. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for; there were no signs of a struggle in the lounge at all, none of the nondescript pictures on the mantelpiece out of place, none of the armchairs moved.

There was a fireplace framed by a mantelpiece and a large mirror atop it on his side of the room. If what the colonel had said earlier was right, the murder couldn’t have been committed in this room because the mirror made it impossible to sneak up on anybody.

“This is not how I saw this evening going,” Nicky said, more to himself than anyone else, so he was almost startled to hear it draw a huffed laugh from Colonel Mustard.

“Tell me about it,” he said. “I feel like it was derailed before I even arrived.”

Nicky turned to where the man was mixing another drink. If pouring whisky could be called mixing a drink. 

“What happened?”

Contrary to what he was probably thinking, given Nicky’s behaviour towards him and Joe, it wasn’t actually in Nicky’s nature to be abrasive and dismissive of others. Even if they were French.

Mustard paused but didn’t meet Nicky’s eyes as he sat in one of the armchairs on his side of the room. “Oh, uh, the rain. Made me late.”

There was something he wasn’t telling Nicky, but this was hardly something Nicky could blame the man for. There were many things they all weren’t telling each other, Nicky presumed. And now someone was dead.

Nicky sat down in the other armchair opposite Colonel Mustard. “Do you see anything in here that could have been used as a murder weapon?”

Mustard pointed at the whisky decanter and heavy tumblers he’d left on the bar, then shrugged. “Not that I think she’d need it. Dr Orchid looks like the kind of person who could kill a man with far less than that.”

Nicky knew Quynh only as a client who’d sought counselling sessions when the grief from her divorce had still been fresh, but he remembered how she had described in astonishing detail what she’d like to do to her unempathetic boss at the time. She’d apologised a few sessions after, and once they’d worked out a few stress management techniques for her, they’d even laughed about it.

Now, he just chuckled. “You could say that.”

Colonel Mustard squinted at him, and Nicky took care to shut off his face.

“She does have a doctorate, though,” Mustard said after a few moments in which they both contemplated the room. “Probably not a professional killer, then.”

“I don’t think the titles we’ve been given mean much,” Nicky replied.

“You don’t?”

“Well, they don’t seem very consistent, to begin with. How come some people seem to have a title from their real profession, while others’ are made up? For example, if you take—” he paused for a moment. He’d nearly said, _myself_ , because he was not a reverend, and glad that he wasn’t. There’d been a reason he’d left seminary, and it was unsettling that Copley seemed to have found out he’d attended in the first place. Not that Colonel Mustard needed to know that. “—Professor Plum.”

The colonel gave him a long look. A look that made Nicky wonder if that had been the wrong thing to say, as he tried to remember if Joe had given any indication earlier, to anyone else, that he actually _was_ a professor.

Colonel Mustard opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something, reconsidered, and then tried again. “Do you. Do you know J—Professor Plum?”

Nicky’s eyebrows crawled all the way up his forehead. “Do I know Joe?”

They locked gazes over Colonel Mustard’s drink, trying to suss each other out. So he wasn’t the only one at this party who knew Joe. _Interesting_.

Colonel Mustard cleared his throat. “Yeah. Do you know Joe?”

“In what way?”

Colonel Mustard gave him an annoyed look. “So you obviously do know him.”

“I didn’t say that,” Nicky said, and then had to close his eyes because there was no point lying about this now. He just couldn’t tell the colonel the truth, was the problem.

The truth went somewhere along the lines of this:

Nicky had met Joe about half a year earlier. It had been the day of the mandatory staff counselling sessions at the university Nicky worked at two days a week, and it had been a _long_ day. They always were, both because there were a lot of people to fit in on a very tight schedule, and because there was always only so much Nicky could do to help a person who saw him once a year at most. But it had begun to drag on even longer when his last appointment of the day didn’t show up.

Part of him had thought that it would be easy to just sit in his tiny office, wait until the half hour window for this new member of staff had passed, mark him down as a ‘fail to attend’ and go home. But the thought of the paperwork that would’ve caused had made him even more tired than he already was, and so he’d gotten up and decided to look for his appointment.

It had been late, already dark out and as Nicky had suspected, when he found his office the guy had already gone home. And anyone could miss an appointment, fine, but it still grated on Nicky when people decided time keeping was his problem, not theirs, and professors by and large tended to be the worst at it. Unless it was their students’ timekeeping, of course. Then suddenly every second of an assignment submitted late counted against them. 

“Can I help you?” A kind voice behind him had startled Nicky from his thoughts, and he’d turned to find another member of staff in a chequered button down and with the warmest eyes Nicky had ever seen standing behind him.

“Yes,” Nicky had said once he’d stopped gaping at the man and his brain had taken control over his mouth again. “I’m looking for Professor al-Kaysani. He didn’t show up to his mandatory counselling session.”

“Ah,” the man had said, scratching his beard, “I think he’s gone home for the night. Are you the guidance counsellor?”

Nicky had nodded, and barely suppressed a sigh. “Of course he has.” He’d checked his watch. “Would’ve been too late now to do more than give him a piece of my mind and then go home to open a beer, anyway,” he’d mumbled.

The man had cleared his throat and given Nicky a sheepish smile that had had no business looking this lovely. “That kind of day, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

And then two things had happened that were too much for Nicky to process simultaneously at the time. One, the man had taken off his lanyard and put it in his pocket, and two, he had said: “I’m not going to keep you from your beer at home, but if you wanted to tell me about your day, I’d be happy to buy you one in the post-grad bar.”

Nicky had thought he’d been imagining things for the full five seconds it took him to notice that as he’d dragged his eyes up from the man’s chest back to his face, he’d been doing the same to Nicky. When their eyes met, they’d both smiled.

“Why not?” Nicky had heard himself say.“I’m Nicky.”

“Joe.”

And that had been that. Or maybe it could have been, _should_ have been, if Joe hadn’t bought him a beer, and then another, and then a tea, which had been surprisingly good for a university bar, and told Nicky all about the subject he taught, his students, commiserated about the university’s good and not so good well-being policies and then laughed at an absent-minded joke Nicky had made. Maybe, if he hadn’t done that, Nicky would have never known that Joe had dimples under his beard when he threw his head back, and maybe, if Nicky hadn’t known that, he wouldn’t have started making out with Joe once the student bar closed. And maybe, if they hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have ended up having sex on Joe’s desk in his office. Which, again, would probably have been fine, for all the ways that it had not been how Nicky had seen that night going but was not going to complain about, if midway through, Nicky’s brain hadn’t caught up with him.

“Wait a second,” he’d said into Joe’s neck, although panted was probably the better word to describe it, as his eye had caught on the name tag on Joe’s computer. “Isn’t this Professor al-Kaysani’s office?”

And Joe had stilled under him for only a second, but long enough for both of them to know that lying would have been futile. “Yes?”

Nicky had been mad at himself first, for not realising this sooner, but then he had just been mad at Joe. He’d left promptly, half his clothes still in disarray, and vowed to never volunteer to do the staff counselling sessions again. This hadn’t stopped Joe from showing up for his rescheduled mandatory session two weeks later, at which point Nicky had still been too irritated from all the paperwork to forgive him. Not that he’d even tried to apologise.

They had ended up fucking in Nicky’s office that time, and, Nicky was not proud of this, had been irately hooking up ever since. Joe may have been infuriating, but that didn’t change the fact that he was also insanely good in bed.

Of course, he could not tell Colonel Mustard any of this. Or he probably could have, but there was no need to saddle strangers with the whole truth all the time unless you were paying them for it.

He sighed. “Joe and I are… passing professional acquaintances.”

Which certainly was one way of putting it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so they're definitely more idiots than enemies in this one, but they need to use the braincell for other things sometimes :D


	5. three investigation teams, on the search for evidence, with an unexpected turn of events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look, I’m sorry for my comment just now,” she said. “And for all the questions I asked in the lounge. I didn’t mean anything by it, I didn’t want to catch anyone out. It’s just that I’m a horrible tease, apparently. Drove my ex-wife mad.”
> 
> Professor Plum’s smile slipped past her face into the kitchen, and his voice was light when he said: “I bet.”
> 
> Quynh frowned at him. She had literally just mentioned her ex-wife. But when the professor saw her face, he laughed.
> 
> “Oh no, I don’t mean it like that. Not that you’re not a very attractive woman, don’t get me wrong, but I’m also not—” He gestured between the two of them.
> 
> “Straight?” Quynh guessed.
> 
> “Yeah.”
> 
> “Well, you know what they say. All the best ones are gay.” She winked at him, which earned her an exasperated groan.
> 
> “You know, I’m beginning to think your ex-wife may have had a point.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been one of my favourite chapters to write, even though the blocking felt a little bit like herding school children and making sure no character trails off unsupervised :D
> 
> Content warnings: There are some discussions of violence and threatening behaviour in this one. If you've been doing fine with all the content and tone of the fic so far this one shouldn't be a problem either, but as always, feel free to message me if you're concerned about anything.

Quynh set off to the dining room the moment they’d been in agreement about where to go, expecting the professor to follow her. She couldn’t help but feel like the whole thing was a little ridiculous. Maybe she should be more shaken by the fact that there was a dead man in the hallway, but whenever she tried to think about that her thoughts slipped clean off the topic and circled back to Andy, the way she’d spoken to Copley. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was up to something. But accusing her of murder in front of a group of strangers would be the lowest either of them had sunk, even when deep in the throes of their divorce, and so all that was left to do for Quynh was to play along with this hapless charade.

Maybe if she could speak to Andy privately—but that was a silly thought. When was the last time they’d done that? And when was the last time it had gone well?

The dining room was almost exactly as they had left it about an hour earlier – the plates of duck a l’orange more or less eaten, wine glasses more or less empty, only the bowls of crema catalan untouched just where Copley had set them down. Well, one of them was missing. But Andy had said she’d gone back for dessert. 

Absentmindedly, Quynh stuck her pinkie finger in one of the other bowls and licked it off. “True, it could do with a little more zest,” she said to herself. 

Too late she noticed the curious glance Professor Plum was shooting in her direction. Quynh shrugged at him then turned back to the table, sizing up its contents for potential murder weapons.

“You could kill a man the size of Keane with the candelabra. Knock to the back of the head close to the cerebellum briefly cuts off the breathing reflex and would make him lose consciousness, and once there you could use any number of ways to kill him. She probably didn’t do that though, the wax would be everywhere.”

The professor made a slightly strangled noise, but when she looked at him, it appeared he was only trying to suppress a grin. “For my own sanity, I think it’s better if I don’t ask.”

“Suit yourself. I just enjoy a good crime drama when they’re on TV.”

This time, the professor did laugh. “Because there isn’t enough crime in the real world?”

“There may be, but it has so far interfered relatively little with my personal life. Or professional. I appreciate that may be different for some of us.”

Quynh didn’t think she imagined the glare that statement got her, but Professor Plum just gestured to the table set in front of them. “Mrs Scarlet’s knife is missing.”

“The reverend may not be medically trained but I don’t think he’d have missed a stab wound on the body,” Quynh muttered. “And you may remember that she used it to spear Copley’s sleeve earlier. Pretty sure he has it, actually.”

“Fair play, Madame Detective.” At least he didn’t stay mad at her. “Shall we head to the kitchen so you can walk me through more potential ways to kill a man?”

Quynh nodded and followed him out down the hallway to the kitchen. Plum held the door open for her with kind eyes and a smile, and she suddenly felt guilty for the way she’d admonished him. He probably really was just a professor of some boring humanities subject, who, much like her, had been dragged into this mess against his will.

“Look, I’m sorry for my comment just now,” she said. “And for all the questions I asked in the lounge. I didn’t mean anything by it, I didn’t want to catch anyone out. It’s just that I’m a horrible tease, apparently. Drove my ex-wife mad.”

Professor Plum’s smile slipped past her face into the kitchen, and his voice was light when he said: “I bet.”

Quynh frowned at him. She had _literally_ just mentioned her ex-wife. But when the professor saw her face, he laughed.

“Oh no, I don’t mean it like that. Not that you’re not a very attractive woman, don’t get me wrong, but I’m also not—” He gestured between the two of them.

“Straight?” Quynh guessed.

“Yeah.”

“Well, you know what they say. All the best ones are gay.” She winked at him, which earned her an exasperated groan.

“You know, I’m beginning to think your ex-wife may have had a point.”

Quynh laughed at him, and it dislodged a little of the unease she had brought into this house with her.

* * *

Booker wasn’t sure how he’d missed this. The way the man carried himself, he had assumed that he actually was a reverend – big, attentive eyes, shoulders curled slightly forwards to look less intimidating, the demeanour of someone who was always happy to lend an ear. But now that he’d mentioned he’d worked with Joe it was obvious. No one got a broad back like that without training. Military training, usually, but most of Joe’s work was private these days.

That would also explain the unusually hostile attitude Joe had shown towards the man. He’d probably been involved in the Hayworth job that had gone so spectacularly wrong the other month. Joe had been lucky not to take the fall for that. But neither had this man, it seemed.

And the way he was looking at Booker now, he had just missed a question.

“I’m sorry?”

“I asked how you know Joe. Since you know his nickname.”

“Ah.” Booker smiled the smile of the uncertain. “We work together sometimes. Guess you could say we’re also ‘passing professional acquaintances’.”

The reverend nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Are you a researcher at a different university then?”

Booker laughed at his deadpan delivery of what was clearly an attempt to lighten the mood. “Yeah. Right. That’s why they call me Booker.”

The reverend frowned at him for a moment, like Booker had said something strange, but then, he was Italian. Booker wasn’t sure what he’d expected. 

“Interesting. I suppose you expect me to share my name with you as well?”

Booker got very tired of all the second guessing all of a sudden. But the reverend was the last of the attendants whose identity he could not at least guess at. “You can do what you want. I just prefer Booker to “Mustard”, is all.”

The reverend made an appreciative noise. “I prefer to be called Nicky, as well.”

Booker nodded in acknowledgment and they lapsed into something closer to a companionable silence as he finished his whisky. Nicky was looking around the room, eyes searching for something but never quite focussing on anything long enough to indicate that he found it, until he turned back to Booker.

“You know anyone else here?”

Booker thought about the years of friendship with Andy, cemented when they were both going through a divorce, he thought about working with Joe and watching football with him on Sundays, but most of all, he thought about Nile and how she’d looked under the light of the street lamp the day she’d shown up at his door. How her eyes had been shining but her voice had been firm when she’d said: “Thank you for helping me,” before leaving. He hasn’t wanted to do anything else since.

He glanced at Nicky. “No.”

Lying was a skill. It had wrecked Booker’s marriage, but saved his neck on the job time and again.

Nicky nodded. “Me neither.”

And Booker was better at it than most people.

* * *

There was nothing in the kitchen that made for an obvious murder weapon – or at least, not any more than most objects in any kitchen do at any given time. But Dr Orchid was right, there were no obvious stab, burn, or suffocation marks on Keane’s body, which led Joe to rule out pretty much all of them. Even blunt force would have shown on the body somehow, but it had looked like not even an arm was broken. 

Joe looked at Dr Orchid. “Any insights, Madame Detective?”

She was standing by the open fridge, inspecting its contents. Without turning around to Joe, she answered: “There wasn’t enough time to kill him by stuffing him in the freezer. She also would have had to defrost the corpse before dumping him in the hallway, and that would have taken hours.”

Joe continued to be torn between being disturbed and amused at her thoughts. And compared to her, he was actually a criminal. Or at least, more of a criminal. He assumed. He couldn’t be sure.

“But you know what is curious?” Dr Orchid had moved on from the fridge to the cupboard next to it, and seemed to be counting the eggs. “I’m neither a detective nor particularly good at running a household, but there seems to be enough food in this kitchen to feed seven people for a good two days. Not just one dinner.”

They looked at each other over the counter in the kitchen. “And Merrick doesn’t have any family,” Joe said. He knew this, because unlike anyone else, he had actually looked up their host before the evening. Although carrying out undue background checks on anyone he came in contact with was more or less an occupational hazard at this point.

“Do you think Copley might have wanted to keep us here beyond the evening?”

Joe hadn’t looked up Copley, because until the man had opened the door for him, Joe hadn’t known he existed. “I think the more important question is whether he’s still planning on doing that.”

Dr Orchid gave him a look that Joe took to mean ‘hold that thought’ and stepped past him to open the freezer.

It became suddenly, horribly apparent that even if someone had wanted to stuff Keane in the freezer, it would have been impossible to do so. Not without removing a good month’s rationing of frozen vegetables, meats and pre-cooked dinners first. Joe swallowed. Copley _had_ said the doors were all under central lock.

“I think we better go back to warn the others that we’ve been kidnapped,” Dr Orchid said, “and then we should get one of the non-murder weapons and confront Copley.”

“Isn’t it a bit soon to plot another assault, Madame Detective?” 

“To be honest I was more thinking along the lines of finding out what is going on here, _Professor_.”

Joe smiled at her when she turned around to look at him. “If I tell you my name, will you promise not to ask any questions about my job when I tell you that there might be a better way of doing that?”

Dr Orchid looked baffled for a moment, but then she just laughed, held her hand out for him to shake. “Sure, whatever. I’m Quynh.”

“Pleasure, my name is Joe.” He nodded at something he’d spotted in the freezer. “And before we go brandishing weapons at Copley, I want to figure out where that hidden door leads.”

* * *

“Which one first?”

Corporal Peacock stopped in front of Andy at the beginning of the hallway that led to the library. Unless they took a left to the terrace instead.

Andy nodded towards the library. “Don’t think we need to bother with the terrace, to be honest.”

“Why?”

“You heard Copley, he’s got the place under central lock. Pretty sure that includes the terrace.”

Corporal Peacock opened the door to the library and tapped around on the wall until she found the light switch. “So you’re saying the reverend lied?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Andy said, but she’d known that since the man had cut himself off and then resolutely made eye contact with Booker as he’d said it. Didn’t take a genius to work out why, either. 

Corporal Peacock frowned at her. “Do you think he killed Keane?”

Andy nearly laughed at her concerned face, but managed to tone it down at the last minute. The young woman was clearly very smart, and laughing in someone’s face had never helped anyone. “Oh, no, not that. Pretty sure he was headed for the terrace at some point. He just never quite made it there.” 

The corporal looked confused but didn’t push it further, and they both made their way into the library, glancing up and down the few rows of bookshelves. If Andy had to guess, she would say that the woman definitely had some sort of military background. She likely, actually, had been a corporal, apparent only in the way she seemed to get on board with ideas that concerned their whole group, the way she sometimes looked for someone to give her instructions before remembering that in real life, that person didn’t exist. Andy still remembered what it was like, the first year or so after she’d left the military, and she could see all the traces clinging to this young woman. That was why Andy had been so quietly taken aback when she’d seen her speak up about Keane earlier. Corporal Peacock was frayed at the edges, maybe, but there was a strong core holding her together. She was just bouncing back. Maybe in time, she would mention what from.

They spotted a book lying on the floor between two of the shelves, and Andy crouched down to pick it up. It was quite dusty, probably hadn’t been handled much if at all before this evening. 

Corporal Peacock cocked her head to read the book’s spine: “ _Shakespeare’s Europe: Mapping the Continent with the Bard_.” She met Andy’s eyes over the book. “Not exactly the Alexander Technique, is it?”

Andy crooked a smile at her. She was learning _fast_.

“Do you think it could be the murder weapon?” 

Andy skimmed some of the paragraphs, looked at the illustrations on some of the maps on the pages. She wasn’t an expert in these sorts of things, it was Quynh who’d always been able to tell the worth of something with barely a glance of appraisal, but the book looked a bit too precious for that. Not something a _professor_ would likely commit a crime with.

“Not unless they wanted to bore him to death.” Andy snapped the book shut with one gloved hand and placed it back in the space on the shelf that had clearly held it before. There was something about this that was so easy to slip back into, the details, eyes and ears trained on something always just outside of her periphery. Maybe that was why she could never quite let it go, the thrill of a mission, even though she had her charity now. She was only _here_ because it was the combination of both, defying blackmail and protecting the women’s refuge she’d built. It might have been too late for her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t turn her life around so that other people could benefit from it.

Corporal Peacock quietly cleared her throat. “I just wanted to say, that was really impressive, earlier. The way you handled Copley.”

Andy turned to look at the young woman’s face. She looked like she’d been psyching herself up a little to say that, which in Andy’s experience usually meant that she said it instead of saying something else. She took a guess at what it was.

“Thanks, kid. Wanna know how it’s done?”

The corporal ducked her head as if to hide her smile. “Uh, yes. That’d be great. If it’s some actual practical advice, and not you telling me it comes with age.”

Andy was surprised by her own laugh. “You calling me old?”

“You’re calling me ‘kid’.”

Andy licked her lips. She knew she’d been drawn to the young woman because she saw a lot of her younger self in her. But perhaps they were even more alike than she’d realised. 

“Fair, here’s how it’s done.” She leaned in closer to the corporal, as if she was letting her in on a secret, and lowered her voice. “It’s a skill you get with age.”

* * *

Nile groaned. 

“You set me up for that,” Mrs Scarlet said, and in truth, Nile couldn’t really be mad at her. There was something about the other woman that screamed _I do not give a fuck what you think_ , and despite her generally nice demeanour towards her, Nile had to conclude that she was included in that statement.

“It’s alright,” Nile said. “I don’t know why I asked. It’s not like you—It’s not like we—It’s not like I know you, or anything.”

Mrs Scarlet flashed her eyebrows at Nile. “Oh, come on now, where’s that streak of self-deprecation coming from?”

“If I say ‘youth,’ will we be even?”

Mrs Scarlet laughed. “What’s your name? Come on, don't look at me like this is a test, you just said I don’t know you.”

They were under strict instructions from their blackmailer not to reveal their identity, but from what Nile could tell, that had been a fraught attempt even before someone had turned up dead. “Nile.”

Mrs Scarlet shook her hand. “Andy. And the real answer is, the confidence comes from knowing what you want and not being able to accept any compromise.”

Nile nodded, letting the words sink in for a moment. It was not the worst at advice she’d ever received, but it also wasn’t that much better than “It comes with age.”

She sighed. “I know what I want.”

It wasn’t really a response to Andy, but it was the truth nonetheless. For all that she’d struggled with what felt like life on the run these past months, she’d never struggled with knowing what she wanted, ever since she was small.

Even now, she could picture it in front of her eyes very clearly. Her dad, happy and healthy, laughing with her mum when she’d come visit the next summer. Herself, sitting in the library wearing her new headphones, finally able to concentrate on what she was studying. Booker, meeting her for a walk in Regent’s Park on a sunny day, smiling without the weight of the world on his shoulders. And then she wanted him to hug her, and to take her hand, and then they’d walk past the Queen Mary gardens and he’d tell her about everything that was right and wrong with the artwork on display between the flowers.

It didn’t have to be a house in the suburbs with a dog and two and a half children, but Nile wanted to have a family that felt whole again. No matter what Andy might call her, she wasn’t a child. Just because she didn’t know how to go about getting something didn’t mean she wouldn’t know what to do with it once she got it.

“This has stopped being about how to handle yourself, hm?” 

When Nile shook herself free from her reverie, Andy was looking at her with a curious eyebrow. It had, sort of, stopped being about that. Not by much, but that was only because lately it had become hard, sort of, to think about anything she was, or could be, without also thinking about Booker. It wasn’t that she didn’t know he also carried a heavy past, heavier than perhaps her own. And yet when she was with him, the world became lighter on her shoulders somehow. 

“Sorry.”

“That’s fine. Not really an expert in the relationship advice department, but it would probably just be the same.”

Nile’s gaze snapped up. It hadn’t really been about relationship advice. Or at least she thought it hadn’t been.

“What, just know what you want and then go for it?”

“Actually, that’s only half of it.”

“What’s the other?”

Or maybe, maybe, maybe, it had been about this all along, and she’d just refused to see. Andy wasn’t looking at her anymore, instead fixating on a point somewhere beyond Nile, somewhere outside the window.

“Not stopping to fight for it.”

It had stopped being general advice for Andy, too. Nile scoffed.

“You don’t strike me as someone who’s stopped fighting.”

“I did when it mattered.” Andy shrugged.

“Is this about Dr Orchid?”

Mrs Scarlet’s head snapped up, her mouth opened as if to deny it. Nile rolled her eyes. 

“Please, I am young, not blind.” 

But before Andy could say anything in her defence, they were interrupted by shouting from the hallway.

* * *

“Did you hear that?” 

Nicky didn’t wait for Booker’s reply. The manor had modern decoration, but it was an old English country house – noise travelled. In this case, it was shouting, a tussle. It sounded like a fight. Nicky had sprung up from his seat and stood in the doorway to the lounge to peer down the hallway, but he couldn’t see anything. 

“Let’s go.” Booker had appeared next to him and gave him a small nod before stalking down the hallway to where the noise was coming from. He carried himself oddly, leading with his left shoulder, body a tense line, right hand hovering over his hip just under his jacket. He reminded Nicky of the games he’d played with his friends when they were children, a version of hide-and-seek that included the use of water pistols. Only if Booker had a gun, it was likely not loaded with water. And where would a university researcher get one of those?

Nicky’s thoughts were interrupted by the scene in the hallway. There was Copley, feet dangling about two inches from the ground. But he wasn’t hanging from anything – he was hoisted in the air by none other than Keane, who was back from the dead, and back with a vengeance. Or it hadn’t only been Nicky’s own heartbeat he’d been able to feel when he’d checked earlier.

Clutching his collar, Keane shook Copley like a ragdoll. “Where is it?”

He was slurring his speech, and from his perspective half behind Keane, Nicky noticed the bruising on the back of his head. A blow to the head long enough to knock him out meant some pretty severe brain damage. It was a miracle the man was standing up in the first place.

“Where is my gun, Copley?”

Copley’s fingers were wrapped around Keane’s, trying to pry them away from his collar. He looked terrified. “I don’t know,” he said, voice a shadow of his former suave assurance, “I—”

Keane shook him once more, cursing. “I’m going to kill that bitch. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to kill her.” He dropped Copley without preamble, and Nicky watched the man crumple to the floor, legs giving out under the adrenaline. Keane looked like he was about to kick him for good measure, but then he just pulled out his phone and pointed it at Copley. “And when I’ve killed her, I’m gonna call Merrick and shut down whatever the fuck is going on here.” His words were barely intelligible at this point, but he was talking himself up into a rage. “Now you can be my problem now or can be my problem later, but I’m asking again. Where is it, Copley?”

“I don't have it, Keane, I don’t know what you’re talk—”

“Over here, asshole.”

Nicky had been so transfixed on what was happening in front of him that he hadn’t noticed Mrs Scarlet and Corporal Peacock joining them. When Keane whipped around at the sound of Mrs Scarlet’s voice, unfixed eyes trying to focus on her, she raised a gun and shot him. Next to him, Booker flinched.

Nicky’s first thought was that a gunshot was a lot louder than he’d imagined it would be. His ears were still ringing when he got around to his second thought, which was _How is that man still alive?_ After, he admonished himself for thinking that a little, but then Keane had just threatened multiple to kill multiple people in one breath.

Keane was still standing, but barely, his face a grimace of pain, confusion and uncontained rage. A combination that made people dangerous. Nicky half-expected him to charge at Mrs Scarlet like a bull in a fight, but instead he just turned to Copley. 

A mean grin spread over his face. He was still clutching his arm where Mrs Scarlet had shot him, then bent to pick up his phone where he’d dropped it and turned to the entrance door.

“No,” Copley said, panic clear in his voice, “no, don’t let him—”

But before Keane could reach it, a door to his left – or rather, the wall – opened to reveal Joe and Quynh. Quynh looked deeply unimpressed with the situation, which Nicky was beginning to remember was how she always looked when she was on the verge of freaking out. But Joe stepped out into the hallway to block Keane from the entrance door, shoulders squared, stance secure. He cocked his head to the side, and a small smile danced around his lips as he told Keane: “You’re not getting past me.”

Nicky believed him. The realisation of that fact was delayed by the moment it took him to reroute most of his blood back into his head. This was, on the whole, not an entirely new reaction of his body to Joe. Nor was the parched mouth, but what was new was the dawning realisation that _this_ Joe was nothing like the professor he’d been fucking on his lunchbreaks.

Keane made a sound like a growling dog, spun on his heel, and stormed up the stairs and away into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... so I guess Nicky never gets to check the body again 😳 And I have never understood why some English people store their eggs in the cupboard, but I imagine Copley would be one of them.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's been commenting - I love love love reading your theories about everyone's backstory and picking up on the little hints I've tried to drop in. Makes me feel _seen_ , but in the best way <33


	6. Quynh Nguyen, back in the entrance hall, with the gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a moment of silence in which they all sat with that sentence. Quynh didn’t know why Andy had a fight with Keane, but by now she could guess. It was a strange relief to see that most of the others only stood in confusion, apart from Colonel Mustard, who had a grim smile on his face.
> 
> “But how?” Corporal Peacock came forward after hovering just a step behind Andy the entire time. “How do you know that? Did you know him before?”
> 
> Andy turned from Corporal Peacock to Copley, eyebrow raised. “Is it time for that part of the evening?”
> 
> “No,” Quynh heard herself saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're halfway there!
> 
> Content warning: There's some irresponsible drinking going on.

There was a moment, just after Joe had thrown the door open and stopped Keane from getting away, that Quynh had wished she’d have been able to stay in the dark of the secret passage they’d discovered. Granted, there wasn’t much down there other than some electric meters, a fuse box, and what she was fairly certain had been a rat. But it had somehow been kinder than being back in the entrance hall, confronted with the rest of the party and the disastrous turn the evening had taken. It had all felt far less real behind those doors, even as they’d heard every word.

Copley picked himself off the floor. “You shot him!” he said to Andy, as if that fact was only now catching up with him. “And you brought a gun to a dinner party!?”

“Woah,” the Colonel interrupted him, “she just saved your ass, man.”

“Yeah, I’d level it with the accusations,” Joe added.

For her part, Andy put the security back on the gun and held it out for Copley to take, but he wouldn’t even look at it, flinching away.

“Suit yourself,” she said. “I didn’t bring a gun to your ‘party’, I took it off Keane after I had a run in with him earlier. Looks like it was good that I did, too. You don’t want someone with a concussion shooting at you.”

“So it was you who killed him?” Nicky asked. He looked like Quynh felt – a little bit miserable at the thought.

“Well unless he just came back from the dead, I clearly didn’t manage to do much more than knock him out.” 

Copley frowned. “Why would you not just say that earlier then?”

“ _Earlier_ he had just been pronounced dead. I didn’t think he was, but apologies for not rushing into confession.” 

Andy shot him a sharp and challenging grin, but Quynh knew that look. It was not a good look. It was all the bravado and none of the fear, which usually meant that there was something far more troubling lurking under the surface. Something Andy wouldn’t say.

Andy looked towards the stairs Keane had disappeared up, and Quynh’s heart sank. “Although maybe I should’ve. Keane is a scumbag who treats other people worse than some people treat their dogs. Sometimes it’s too late for intimidation tactics. _Or_ self-defense.”

There was a moment of silence in which they all sat with that sentence. Quynh didn’t _know_ why Andy had a fight with Keane, but by now she could guess. It was a strange relief to see that most of the others only stood in confusion, apart from Colonel Mustard, who had a grim smile on his face.

“But how?” Corporal Peacock came forward after hovering just a step behind Andy the entire time. “How do you know that? Did you know him before?”

Andy turned from Corporal Peacock to Copley, eyebrow raised. “Is it time for that part of the evening?”

“No,” Quynh heard herself saying.

Everyone knew too much about everyone else at this point anyway, but a part of Quynh still didn’t want to see Andy unmasked like that. And another part of her, the one that had been too proud to even sign the goddamn divorce papers but also too proud to contact Andy again, that part also didn’t want the whole story dragged out into the open. She gave Nicky a desperate look, which he returned with his serene smile. 

He was the only one who knew how much Quynh hated this. How it was both the reason why she had to split from Andy and the reason she still couldn't stop thinking about her. How her relationship with Andy had always been one of extremes. 

They’d met in a nightclub. It had been an awful week at work, and in her twenties, going to a gay bar and knocking back her body weight in shots had still seemed like an excellent way of making up for that to Quynh. There’d been another girl at the bar, pink and blue glitter in her hair reflecting the club’s light effects, who’d been desperately trying to shake off the attention from a bulky guy next to her. Quynh had watched this for a moment – there were always some people who didn’t understand rejection even if it spit them in the face – and then made her way over to subtly offer the girl a way out. 

“Hey,” she’d said to her, “there you are! You were taking so long to order drinks, I thought I’d come get you back to our table.”

“We were _talking_ ,” the bulky guy had said to Quynh, spit flying, “so why don’t you piss off and let us finish our conversation.”

Before Quynh could respond anything though, someone had tapped the guy on the shoulder and said: “No. You were talking, she was trying to get away. So why don’t you piss off.”

The guy had thrown a punch in the direction of the interrupter, but they’d been quicker, ducking under his fist and using the momentum of his imbalance to twist his arm around, pin it onto his back. Quynh had put herself in between the sparkly woman and the guy. 

“I said, ‘piss off’,” and then Quynh had been able to see that their saviour was a tall and muscular woman, dressed in all black like a roadie at a concert, and her tone was low and dangerous as she told the guy, “so why don’t you do that, or we’ll see what happens to your kneecaps.”

The guy had protested for a while longer, but she’d not let off until one of the bouncers escorted him from the club, and one of the sparkly woman’s actual friends had collected her from Quynh. The woman dressed like a roadie had stood and blown a strand of brown hair from her face, a slight flush on her excellent cheekbones from the exertion, and Quynh—Quynh had been in love.

“Do you work here?” she’d asked, only to have the sharpest gaze she’d ever seen directed at her.

“Now there’s a version of ‘come here often’ I haven’t heard before,” the woman had said, but her smile had been wild and joyful as she sidled up next to Quynh at the bar. “I’m Andy. And yes, you may buy me a drink.”

And so Quynh had shared her shots with Andy and her week had gone from forgettable for all the wrong reasons to memorable for all the right ones. They’d ended up at Quynh’s place drinking raspberry vodka out of each other’s belly buttons, but when Quynh had woken up the morning after with a colossal headache and Andy’s head on her chest, she’d felt a surprising lack of regret. 

“I can tell you’re awake, I’ll go in a minute,” Andy had said.

“Do you have to?” Quynh had asked, and pushed a strand of hair behind Andy’s ear. She’d cracked open an eye to look at her, clear and grey in the morning sun.

“No.” And then she hadn’t, and at the end of the next week still hadn’t, and because they’d been young and impulsive, and refused to call it stupidity, they’d moved in with each other that same month, and got married not three after, with two silver bracelets they had lying around because they hadn’t managed to buy rings. It had been everything Quynh had never known she wanted, but more than that, it was everything she'd needed, and that, if anything, made her failure to keep it all that harder to take.

Quynh couldn’t say when the problems had started. It was not like she hadn’t known from the start, in some way, what Andy did for a living. Because she hadn’t worked at that bar, she’d just been someone with a bit too much military training in the right place at the right time. But Quynh hadn’t found out just _how_ she used that military training until about a year in, when she had taken Andy to a fundraising gala organised by the bank Quynh worked at. Looking at her now in the deep red dress with slits so high up her thighs she could easily reach a gun tucked away there felt like a memory of all the best and worst parts about that evening.

“And what do you?” Andy had been asked that question so many times, Quynh had lost track.

“I work in security,” Andy had answered again and again. “Personal, mostly, but I’m flexible.”

And no one had asked any further, the same way that Quynh had never really asked any further, until one of her colleagues had said: “Oh-hoh! Well, I say, our Quynh’s always had an appetite for risk with her investments, so I can’t say I’m surprised.”

And they’d all laughed about it, and moved on to different topics, but afterwards, Quynh hadn’t been able to resist asking: “What did he mean? That you’re a risk for me?”

And Andy had looked down at her with gentle eyes and said: “He probably knows that personal security is just a fancy word for hired gun.”

It hadn’t started an argument straight away. At first, it had just been hard to take that Andy spent her time as armed protection, the equivalent of cannon fodder in exchange for money. But the more Quynh thought about what _else_ Andy’s job entailed, the harder it got to ignore the problems that came with it.

“And so if someone says: ‘Throw yourself in harm’s way; pull the trigger on that person,’ you just do it? No questions asked, no remorse?”

“And if your boss says: ‘Short that stock, take a gamble with another’ you just do it, even if you know it’ll mean someone loses their livelihood?”

It would go on and on and on.

They’d spent their days arguing and their night clinging to each other through fits of sleep hoping to fix what they couldn’t seem to say with words. Where their personal lives seemed to exist in perfect sync, their professional ideologies became more and more incompatible.

She’d really thought it could last. That if only they fanned each other’s flames high enough, they would never burn out. But maybe that was the problem. Quynh was still burning as brightly as she had that first day, but when she looked at Andy, all Quynh could see was the moat she’d built around herself, the ice in her eyes and voice when she spoke to her. And Quynh didn’t know how to build the bridge she needed with only words. 

Quynh became distantly aware that she’d taken a step forward as she’d spoken, and that everyone had fallen silent, looking at her.

“We need to find Keane first,” she added. “For all we know he is contacting Merrick or calling the police from somewhere else in the house where there might be reception right now. And then once we’ve decided what we’re going to do with him, we’ll have the time to talk, like adults.”

She might have imagined the challenge in Andy’s eyebrows, but it would have been her own fault for glancing in her direction. Quynh dragged her gaze back to Copley, hardened. “For example about the fact that there’s enough food in the pantry to see us through the nuclear winter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're a current reader of this fic; I'm taking a week off posting because finals are upon us (😭) and while the fic is all written, editing is more time consuming now to make sure all the loose ends are clearly tied up in the text and not just in my head. 
> 
> I will also catch up on replying to comments! You are all so lovely and continue to make my day <33
> 
> If you're a future reader of this fic when it's fully posted: we're halfway through now. I _know_ it's still technically a cliffhanger ending, but if you need to take a break, go to sleep, get yourself a glass of water or really shouldn't put off taking your meds any longer - now's the time! I'm not saying it's only worse cliffhangers from here on out, but. I'm also not _not_ saying that. 😬

**Author's Note:**

> While I was plotting this I started reading [this wonderful fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169268/chapters/69023841) by liadan14 - which is a masterpiece that is impossible to describe here - and as a result, I think the backstory I’ve given one or two characters in particular is largely inspired by the one she’s given them.  
> I've also borrowed [this](https://lgbtmazight.tumblr.com/post/625444911056093184/hottopicmonk-asked-me-about-my-personal-favorite) popular headcanon for another character, which was the missing puzzle piece I needed to fit all of this together. (This note will become less vague and give full credit as backstory is revealed, as they're still in spoiler territory for now. (You'll likely know both of the things I'm referring to anyway, but if you don't mind spoilers and haven't read the fic yet, you absolutely should! It's incredible.))
> 
> I will update Mondays and/or Thursdays, which I think we can all agree are the most murderous days of the week ;)


End file.
